Saturday, September 5, 2009

Trutherism vs. Birtherism

I was thinking about this as the beliefs of Van Jones, the Green Jobs Czar, come to light. For those who do not know, he was one of the founding members of a Truther Commission and also one of the signatories of their petition demanding that Congress look into the Bush's role in 9/11. Just to be clear, they weren't just curious if the Bush administration was involved, they were asserting that as a truth that needed to be uncovered.

So, which is worse? Birtherism is the belief that Obama is not eligible to be President of the United States because of a technicality - some believe that Obama was born in Kenya and that although his mother was a citizen, she may not have spent enough time as an adult in the US before travelling overseas and giving birth to Obama in Kenya. They believe that there has been a conspiracy by a number of people to keep this secret - several at his birth which would have included family members, several in the state government of Hawaii when they found out and Obama, when he found out. In the end, they believe that it's a conspiracy of dozens to trick the system.

On the other hand, what do truthers believe? At the most extreme, they believe that the Bush administration, the US military, members of state and local government, private citizens as well as the Air National Guard conspired to set up the murder of 10s of 1,000s of American civilians. I say 10s of 1,000s because that was the goal.

So, these dozens (?) of conspirators all agreed to collaborate in this murder because they all believed what? It's ridiculous to argue.

They all believed in the W administration? Really? 8 months after a horribly divisive election debacle there were a huge number of true believers who wanted to support mass murder?

They all believed in the need to invade Afghanistan, a country that 80% of Americans still cannot find on a map?

They all believed in the need to invade Iraq and take its oil? Something we still haven't done?

They all believed in taking down bin Laden - a man that 90% of Americans had no knowledge of before 9/11?

So, Birthers vs. Truthers. I, of course, am neither. That said, who's got a more implausible theory? Who's more nutter? I will go with Truthers.